Yes (R). He has even admitted that he perjured - b/c he was worried about losing his job. Perjury IS a crime. This being said - he has NOT done anything criminal in the leaking of the CIA agent's situation.
I want to stress here that a lot of Dems. are going to rejoice, but they wanted Clinton to be acquitted for perjury, b/c "he did nothing wrong." And a lot of Reps. will claim Libby's innocence here and bash Clinton.
My statement to both sides: "Get over party politics and worry about justice." Perjury is perjury, no matter who perjured.
Libby found guilty of perjury, obstruction of justiceBy Larry Downing, Reuters
Former Dick Cheney aide Lewis 'Scooter' Libby was found guilty of four out of five charges in the CIA leak case.
By Richard Willing, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — A federal jury today convicted former vice presidential aide Lewis "Scooter" Libby of lying to FBI agents and grand jurors investigating how a CIA officer's identity was leaked to reporters in 2003.
ON DEADLINE: Updates and looking back at what started it all
Libby, 56, who was both chief of staff and national security adviser to Vice President Cheney before resigning in 2005, was convicted of one count of obstruction of justice, one count of false statements to investigators and two counts of perjury before the grand jury.
He was acquitted of one count of making false statements to the FBI.
Libby faces up to 30 years in prison and a possible fine of $1.25 million. Federal sentencing guidelines permit a judge to sentence Libby to far less time. He will remain free until at least his June 5 sentencing date.
FIND MORE STORIES IN: Reuters | Dick Cheney | Vice President | Valerie Plame | Central Intelligence Agency | Joseph Wilson | Meet the Press | Robert Novak | Patrick Fitzgerald | Federal Bureau of Investigation | Matt Cooper | Scooter | Theodore Wells
The verdict is at least a partial vindication for special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, who led an investigation that labored for 24 months and failed to charge anyone with leaking the identity of CIA officer Valerie Plame.
"We brought charges, we went to trial and we proved the case," Fitzgerald said after the verdict was announced. He said prosecutors "could not walk away" from the facts they discovered during the investigation into Libby.
"It's sad that we had a situation where a high-level official person who worked in the office of the vice president obstructed justice and lied under oath. We wish that it had not happened, but it did," Fitzgerald said.
The jury of eight women and four men deliberated for 10 days before reaching the verdict. Jurors heard 19 witnesses during 14 days of testimony that began Jan. 23.
No one was ever charged with disclosing Plame's identity. Libby was the only person charged in the case.
"We were disappointed in the verdict of the jurors," Libby's lead attorney, Theodore Wells, said immediately after the verdict. "We intend to keep fighting."
AUDIO: Defense will seek new trial
Wells said Libby's defense team will file a motion for a new trial, "and if that is denied, we will appeal the conviction and we have every confidence that ultimately, Mr. Libby will be vindicated."
President Bush watched on television from the Oval Office as the verdicts were read, White House deputy press secretary Dana Perino said. She said Bush "was saddened for Scooter Libby and his family" but also "respected the jury's verdict."
The charges flowed from an investigation into a July 14, 2003, article by syndicated columnist Robert Novak that identified Plame as a "CIA operative" on weapons of mass destruction. Plame, Novak wrote, had played a role in sending her husband, former State Department official Joseph Wilson, on a CIA mission to the African nation Niger to explore reports that Iraq had sought uranium there for an illicit nuclear program.
Wilson had concluded the reports were likely baseless after a February 2002 trip to Niger.
Eight days before the Novak column, in newspaper stories and an appearance on Meet The Press, Wilson had accused Cheney and the Bush administration of ignoring his findings and claiming that Iraq posed a nuclear threat to justify invading that nation in March 2003. "Outing" his wife as a CIA official, Wilson and others soon claimed, was retribution for his criticism.
Deliberately divulging the identity of an undercover CIA officer is a federal crime. The Justice Department began an investigation in the fall of 2003. In December 2003, Fitzgerald was appointed as special outside counsel because Libby and other administration officials were targets. Fitzgerald is also the U.S. attorney for Chicago.
Testimony given during the trial suggests that Fitzgerald knew early into his investigation that Richard Armitage, then the assistant secretary of state, and White House adviser Karl Rove — but not Libby — had been the sources for Novak's column.
Libby, Fitzgerald learned, had discussed Plame with eight other individuals, including New York Times reporter Judith Miller, in the month before the column appeared. But in interviews with FBI and later in questioning before a grand jury, Libby told a different story:
That he had learned Plame's identity from Cheney in early June 2003, forgot, then heard it again from NBC reporter Tim Russert on or about July 10. On July 12, Libby said, he told Time magazine's Matt Cooper that other reporters were saying that Plame worked at the CIA.
Libby, the indictment against him charged, did speak to Russert but made up the story about learning of Plame from the newsman. Libby also lied about his conversation with Cooper, the indictment charged. Rather than dismissing talk of Plame as gossip, Libby confirmed to Cooper that she worked at the CIA, the indictment said.
During the trial, Fitzgerald said Libby's motive for lying were his fears that he would either be fired or prosecuted if investigators discovered that he had been discussing classified information. In June 2004, President Bush said anyone who leaked Plame's identity would be fired. By attributing talk of Plame's identity to reporters, Fitzgerald told jurors, Libby hoped to deflect attention from his own office's campaign to avoid blame for using faulty intelligence.
At trial, prosecutors relied on testimony from Russert, who said it "would have been impossible" for him to have told Libby about Plame. The Meet The Press host told jurors he didn't know about Plame until he read Novak's column several days later.
Prosecutors also used a wall chart to show details of nine conversations they said Libby had concerning Plame in the month before her name became public.
Libby's defense team, led by Wells, sought to shake Russert's story, suggesting that he had learned of Plame from fellow reporters before talking to Libby, then misremembered that conversation.
They also pointed out that Cooper's testimony was not supported by notes the reporter took on the conversation or by Libby's notes.
Libby's attorneys also argued that Libby was not part of an organized effort to "out" the CIA officer and thus had no motive to lie. They tried to bolster their point with a wall chart that showed Libby spoke to at least four other reporters without mentioning Plame in the month before the publication of Novak's column.
At times, the trial provided a look into the inner workings of Cheney's office. Faced with criticism from Plame's husband, Cheney took charge of the response, dictating talking points to his press secretary and later scripting interview responses for Libby. At Libby's request, Cheney also intervened with the White House press office issue a statement clearing Libby of leaking to Novak.
The trial also shed light uncomfortable light on the practices of some Washington journalists.
Former New York Times reporter Miller, who spent 85 days in jail in 2005 resisting a grand jury subpoena, forgot about one key conversation with Libby until an old notebook refreshed her memory. Miller discovered the notes, she testified, in a shopping bag under her desk after being released from jail.
Russert also at first resisted testifying about his confidential conversation with Libby, refusing even to acknowledge that they had spoken. At the time, though, he already had talked freely to the FBI about his conversation with Libby, giving details that would ultimately help convict him.
In his initial reporting on the story, Russert made no mention of his talks with the FBI.
The trial also showed a CIA that appeared at odds with itself over whether Plame's status could be revealed.
In June 2003, Craig Schmall, Libby's CIA briefer, told Libby that revealing a clandestine agent's name, even if she was no longer an active spy, could compromise her former sources and operations in which she had participated.
But earlier that month Robert Grenier, a high-ranking CIA official, volunteered in a conversation with Libby that Plame worked at the agency and had played a role in sending him to Niger.
Later, when Novak was preparing his column, a CIA spokesman confirmed her status but asked the columnist not to run it.
The trial made clear that Cheney himself learned Plame's CIA status before June 11, about the time he first mentioned her to Libby.
But the vice president was not called to testify. How Cheney learned of Plame, and who told him, remain unresolved.
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